Video Game Devs Apologize For Racist Enemy Design

Little Devil Inside is a minimalist semi open-world adventure video game set to release on PS5. The game was first showcased in the PS5 launch event on 11th June. The developers of Little Devil Inside issued an apology recently after people all over social media accused them of racist character design.

The game was first announced on a Kickstarter campaign and has since then undergone multiple stages of development. The game looks really beautiful with its minimalist aesthetic. At the PlayStation reveal event, it was announced that Little Devil Inside will be a limited edition “timed” Sony exclusive for PS5.

Few days following the announcement of the game at the PS5 reveal event, people all over social media have been noticing the fact that certain villains have been shown as a caricature. They claim that these villains look like racist caricatures of black, and indigenous people.

This, of course, became a major issue, and Neostream Interactive (the developer for this game) has issued an apology.

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 Racist caricatures in character design

Some villains, as seen in the trailer, appear to be exaggerated racist caricatures of black and/or indigenous people. These villains have thick red lips and dreadlocks. They are seen in this game to be wearing a white loincloth.

Lord Balvin, a Twitch streamer, was the first to notice this stereotype. He posted a tweet about this and added that he is not sure what the intentions were, for such a portrayal. He suggested that the developers at Neostream could have taken some insight “from the indigenous people in the room”.

Another Twitch streamer PikaChulita replied on Balvin’s Twitter post explaining how this surely a caricature. She said the devs should definitely fix it. She added that video game or otherwise, standing in 2020, this should not even be happening.

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Devs apologized and promised to fix this

The developers from Nostream Interactive issued an apology, stating this was unintentional. They said that they never intended for a racist portrayal of Afro or Afro-American tribes in their character design. In the apology statement, they added that they will fix this as soon as possible. They plan to remove the dreadlocks and the lips and change the skin tone of the characters and if that is not enough, they have planned to change the character design entirely.

It is true that racial stereotyping, standing in this age, should not be happening at all. Even more so, because the recent incidents have been an eye-opener for many people who have been ignorant of this issue.